


she hates (and she always will)

by veggiemom



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Character, No happy ending here sorry Carol baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 06:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15624639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veggiemom/pseuds/veggiemom
Summary: The more that Carol was with Frieda, the easier it was to fall in love with her, and trying to smother her feelings between Frieda's legs with no strings attached wouldn't work anymore.





	she hates (and she always will)

The first time it happens, Carol is almost angry at Frieda, even though Carol is the one that kissed her in the first place. She pulls away quick, the lips that'd just been on Frieda's own now gritted in a horrible scowl and her cheeks blotched a furious red. Her hand still remains in Frieda's hair, clutching onto what wasn't in braids. They'd been in Frieda's hide away, and Frieda had been talking about some survival nerd shit and it had just... happened.

"Carol?" Frieda asks in that deep, quiet southern voice of hers. "You okay?"

"Listen," Carol hisses near threateningly and moves in close to Frieda, close enough that their lips almost touch again, but they're just far enough so that Carol can still find Frieda's expression and lock eyes with her. She tightens her grip on her hair. Carol breathes against her, labored, trying to control herself. Pure angers swarms behind her eyes and inside her, and she knows why it's there, she's felt this before, but to acknowledge the typhoon of fiery emotion that scorches her belly would be opening up the can of worms. It pisses her off even more. Carol breathes unevenly and whispers harshly, "I'm not a _fuckin'_ lesbo, alright? It's this fuckin' place. Being surrounded by a bunch of dykes in an endless sea of pussy is getting to my head."

She says it like she's trying to convince herself.

Frieda is always so compliant with what Carol wants, that's why she likes her so much (it's not because of the stupidly adorable way she talks, it's not because of fitting darkness underneath her pale eyes, it's not that sweetly braided hair that betrays her true nature) — if Frieda thinks anything about what Carol says, she keeps her mouth closed.

Good, Carol thinks. Frieda's smart, so Carol knows that Frieda knows what Carol knows. But she also knows that it's _because_ Frieda is smart that she doesn't say a word.

"Mmhm," Frieda murmurs in agreement, "I know, Carol," is all she says, simply.  
  
Carol purses her lips to finally hide her previously bared rows of teeth and bobs her head in a slight nod, satisfied with Frieda's answer. "Fuck," she mutters, finally calming down. "Okay, good," she breathes, "Didn't want you to get any fucked up ideas."  
  
"Nah," Frieda drawls casually, her eyes searching Carol's own, careful in their approach. "Can you let go of my hair now? It's startin' to sting and the pillows here are shit enough as is, I don't need another reason to be sore."  
  
Carol ignores Frieda and yanks her in for a deeper series of kisses instead with a fist full of deep brown hair, but her hand eventually relinquishes its grip to grab Frieda's body instead.

* * *

The elephant in the room isn't addressed. They don't talk about what it means. It just hangs there vaguely, over Carol's head, and she doesn't know what Frieda thinks about it but she doesn't care. Most of the time, Carol doesn't bother to think about the technicalities if she can help it, and she drowns away her deeper thoughts when she fucks Frieda.  
  
And they do fuck - often. It's easy not to get caught by COs when Carol's got Frieda on her side. She's so sneaky, and knows the best places to hide away from the guards and the other prisoners alike. The other C-Block girls aren't smart like Frieda is, but if they happen to hear them as they pass by the supply closets and know what's good for them, they don't say a fucking word. They knew what Carol would do to them if she was tested.  
  
Carol laughs breathily against the skin of Frieda's throat as she pulls her fingers out of her, her hand disappeared away into Frieda's pants. She nips playfully against the center of Frieda's tender throat as if she could sink her teeth into her and rip out everything inside right there, and then leans up to kiss her passionately.  
  
"Fuck," Carol chuckles between kisses that Frieda returns, hot and open-mouthed, their bodies pressed close together. "You're usually as quiet as a goddamn mouse. Hearing you whimper like that really does shit to me."  
  
Frieda exhales a laugh of her own. "Hey, I ain't _that_ loud. You'd skin me alive if I was," she says.  
  
Carol hums against Frieda's lips in consideration. "Skinning's more your thing, isn't it? Deers and venison and all that hunting shit you do," Carol's teeth catch Frieda's bottom lip briefly, and in the darkness of the closet, she looks up at Frieda to take her in the best she can. "But I see what you mean. Now why don't you shut up and just let me kiss you some more? I'm getting tired of talking real fast," Carol mumbles before she seals their lips together, leaving no more room to talk.  
  
The more that Frieda talked, the easier it was to - _no,_ Carol cuts her thoughts off before they can get anywhere, that anger burning up quickly inside her again. Rougher she becomes with Frieda, her hand leaving the other girl's pants to pin both her arms to the wall and move hard against her.  
  
Even though Frieda's not talking anymore, kissing her, feeling her body against her own, tells Carol exactly what she doesn't want to acknowledge.  
  
The more that Carol was with Frieda, the easier it was to fall in love with her, and trying to smother her feelings between Frieda's legs with no strings attached wouldn't work anymore.  
  
Fuck.

* * *

  
Before Frieda, Carol had never been with anyone. It's why she'd been so clumsy the first time they fucked, pushing too much of her weight onto Frieda's lap when she'd straddled her in the heat of searching hands and mouths, biting her lip and making her bleed ( _unintentionally_ in that instance, she still did that to this day), not knowing what the hell to do with her fingers once they were inside her.  
  
She'd never truly wanted to be with boys. She'd never been attracted to them, either, not in the way the other girls in her classes were, or in any other way for that matter. She knew she should have been, and she tried to be, but it wouldn't stick. Not to the boys she'd see year after year, with their goofy grins and ugly laughter, the ones her classmates wanted to be their boyfriends. Not to the jocks, not the "handsome" ones that Barb always had on her arm. Not even to celebrities and the men in her magazines, who she'd feigned interest in (and Barb, that stupid bitch, always called her out on her choice of Burt Reynolds for being shit taste, said knowingly and deliberately like she knew Carol was faking herself out while also making her feel bad she couldn't find a "better" dude to use as her sort of beard).  
  
There had been girls, though, her entire life, that Carol had been silently drawn to, and there'd never been a time where she didn't feel the shame and need to hide and push it down. She'd only feel that familiar anger in her core as she watched them quietly, with the slender curves of their necks and the feminine dips of their hips that attracted her far more than broad chests and big hands. She'd tried to look away, to direct her attention to the half-naked men on endless magazine pages, but she'd always end up looking back up again, and she _hated_ it.   
  
Because she wanted them but couldn't have them, she hated them, and she hated herself, and the cycle of hatred never ended.  
  
What pissed her off the most was that no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself, it was obvious to others, and she hated that, too. Barb, who'd passively tell her in so many words to just come out with it already, and the snot-nosed boys in her classes who'd snicker at her and call her a lesbo. Rumors spread, and she was teased, but Carol would swing and punch at them each and every time to refute, like if she bruised and threatened them enough it wouldn't be true anymore. The sore redness of her knuckles in the aftermath reminded her that it was. It wouldn't let her forget why she was swinging so defensively in the first place.  
  
Dad hated the dykes. He'd made it beyond clear, shaking his head and crossing his large arms over his chest with a disapproving glower every time he'd catch sight of them in the news or in the streets. They were diminishing family values, he'd say while clicking his tongue, as if the Denning family was in any way functional whatsoever.

It was only fitting, Carol had guessed down in her cynical heart, that she'd turned out to be a dyke too, because of fucking _course_ she did. Everything that disappointed dad, Carol was, defying him with her very birth. She couldn't help but wonder if he would have cared if he had ever learned, or if his disappointment of her was even capable of growing deeper than it already was. Maybe it'd have been funny to see his reaction as just another way to spite him, but she'd never know for sure. He never wanted to see her again, and that was fine with her, even though she thought the missed opportunity to laugh in his face was a shame.  
  
She doesn't want to explain all of that to Frieda, though. Carol's not into the deep stuff, and doesn't even know how to begin to express her feelings in a way that's genuine. She never has, because she was never allowed. All she knows is that she meant what she told Frieda all those months ago, that meeting her was the luckiest day of her life.  
  
Something had changed, for the first time in her life, and Frieda was the reason. It was nearly a feeling as freeing as the night she'd murdered Debbie.  
  
"So," Carol starts one day, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Frieda in her hidey-hole where it all began. They're not doing much, barely even talking (partially due to Carol's being in deep thought), quietly sitting and waiting for customers to come up to their little makeshift counter in the library bookshelf. She takes her lollipop out of her mouth and twists it in her fingers, as if toying with an idea. She rolls the stick to the right side between her thumb and pointer, and then stops. "I'm gay."  
  
Frieda, with her hand hanging lazily over one of her knees, very slightly moves to look at her, the back of her head rolling against the wall they're both sat with their backs to. Carol stares back at her and bounces her knee. She makes an irritated noise, like a grunt and a hum at once. "You have something to fuckin' say to me or you just gonna stare like a dumbass?" She says quickly, almost anxiously.  
  
Frieda only smiles, subtle but there. "I know, Carol," she says, simply, once again.

* * *

Most feelings, Carol has decided, were no good.

Frieda ratted her out in exchange for a transfer to Minimum.   
  
There was no end to the rage boiling inside her. There was no room to hurt or to cry, there was only the hatred, and it was stronger than ever before. Not only in her belly but stretched out to each and every one of her limbs, in her bloodstream, in her mind and burning holes within.  
  
Something _had_ changed for the first time in her life, and Frieda was most definitely the reason.  
  
She should have learned when she discovered that she'd never live up to Debbie, or even Barb, in their parent's eyes. She should have learned when dad made it apparent that he'd never be able to truly love her. She should have learned when mom said she didn't want to visit her. And she should have known that getting involved with Frieda would lead to the same, but at least now she truly, _truly_ understood.  
  
Chasing after love got you nowhere but deeper in a cesspool of shit and more shit.  
  
In a weird, fucked up way, she almost wants to thank Frieda for teaching her that lesson. Maybe she would, when they'd meet again, and she'd stab the fucking guts out of her with the shiv she left behind and empty out her insides, like Frieda did with all those wild animals she hunted down.

It was poetic, wasn't it? Maybe she did have a little bit of a romantic left in her.

* * *

Sex didn't mean anything anymore. It didn't _have_ to. She was going to be in here for the rest of her life, with the thirty additional years to her sentence, and nobody in their right mind would swear off sex for the rest of their lives. Nowadays that's how things go, venting her rage through violence and sex, instilling fear and maintaining power.  
  
A lot of the times, the four of those things mingle together as one, and that's the way Carol likes things to work for herself in C-Block.  
  
The girl Carol's with in her bunk is around her age, all giggly and blushy, and eager to follow her orders like some kind of lovesick puppy. She's one of Carol's most loyal lackeys, though Carol knows it's because the girl's got a crush on her. When Carol had grabbed her face and told her to spread her legs, she did so, easily.

Stupid. So fucking stupid.  
  
"So are we, like, a thing?" The girl asks, her high-pitched voice stuttery and breathless but sickeningly sweet and almost shy, struggling to speak between Carol's ministrations. "It's been a few times, so I—"  
  
"Are you kidding me?" Carol snarls and lifts her head from between the slender legs wrapped around her head, emerging with a scowl on her wet mouth. She shoves the girl's thighs further apart with a rough hand, and she squeals in response, but Carol ignores her. "I'm not fuckin' gay. I don't wanna be your girlfriend." Carol's heart burns with hatred, maybe for Frieda, maybe for herself. Maybe both. All she knows is that she hates, hates, hates, and she always will. She lowers herself back down, the eyes behind her large glasses nearly black. "Now shut the fuck up and bite down on your hand so you don't make another sound, bitch. I'm not done with you."

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled: _the denial, the acceptance, and the betrayal._ but that was a little too dramatic for my tastes.
> 
> i love carol! and i love carol/frieda! sorry if i've not done them justice, i don't usually dabble in characters or fandoms like this, so the whole time i felt pretty shaky. however, i knew i had to write them because i'm very passionate about carol being a deeply closeted lesbian, as someone who's been there before and sees a lot of herself in carol (in regards to being a suffering baby lesbian and not the whole pushing my little sister into a frozen lake thing, thanks).
> 
> as a disclaimer, no i don't condone carol's actions, but ashley jordyn herself has said a lot of carol's behaviors come from the fact that she wanted to be loved, so there you have it ladies.


End file.
